Anti Virus Opinions please

[Merlin_Magii]

* I ran NOD32 for 3 years and sold it to a large number of clients.

* I always felt 100% happy and safe under its umbrella and never had any infections.

* I was in moderately frequent contact with their tech dept and cannot praise them highly enough.

*At the time of the launch of V4 I noticed a dramatic change in the performance of my machine. It slowed down noticably – sometimes ‘mislaid’ its password and ceased functioning and had to have the password (authorisation/validity check) manually re-entered on a number of occasions. In version 4 it suddenly became a Microsoft clone and flagged up irritatingly that my system was at risk because I didn’t have Ms. Auto Updates switched on (I mean, does anyone in their right mind have this function turned on?). It completely fell over when I uninstalled it and just wouldn’t let me reinstall it.

*I have therefore reluctantly put ESET on the back burner and now supply an alternative product to my clients.

Raymond – PLEASE will you give us all the benefit of your thoughts on Sunbelt’s Vipre A-V? I have watched the birthing of this product with interest and its much vaunted claim to be faster and less resource hungry than its competitors. My early experience indicates this is sadly far from the truth and that it is earning a reputation for bringing PC’s to their knees when scanning.

[dschrader]

I may have a personal opinion about a product - but that is no substitute for a thorough review.

I hate it when someone asks for advice for security products and someone responds, "I've used ABC antivirus and I never got infected . . . "

I strongly suggest anyone looking for security products look at the publications that perform serious, detailed reviews. Unfortunatly, most publications are no longer paying for real reviews - but both PC Magazine and PC World actually test security products in some kind of detailed manner. PC Mag does it's own security testing - in fact we in the security industry worship Neal Rubenking (sp?). He really stress tests the products he reviews.

PC World does some good work too - though they typically rely on av-test.org for virus detection testing. AV-Test is pretty good - they have a zoo of over 2 million samples and they have done a lot of academic work in the space, but they don't look at anything other than static file scanning. So they don't see what happens when you surf to a site that attempts a zero day attack, for example, and they don't look at anti-phishing effectiveness or firewall or even tamper protection (can the malware turn off the virus scanner).

Sorry for the rant

Dan
(from Symantec)

[hellnoire]

No offense Dan, but before recent, Symantec hasn't been known to do too well with threats such as the ones you listed. I also refuse to try your new versions, due to past burns. I don't see anything but negative reviews around the net minus the sites you listed. Perhaps PR might start considering listening a lot more to what they have to say, before listing off the sites that constantly give your product good reviews. Though, I guess I should be thankful to your company. Back in 2004, your products infected me more times then not. Made me a bit of an expert in learning how to take care of threats without your products

As for Merlin_Magii's question, I'm still using ESET after two years, and love it. My favourite anti-virus before that was Avira Free, and believe me, that one catches the most. It's heuristics are also amazingly high, and while it doesn't do anti-phishing or firewall (It has tamper protection and great jobs against Zero Day attacks), you could use Comodo and WoT to cover those bases, making a completely free security suite. Hope this helped.

[evilfantasy]

Sunbelt’s Vipre is still fairly new to the AV world. Although their Counterspy is in my opinion one of the very best.

If you are giving recommendations to clients I would suggest using the well known and "passed the test of time" vendors like ESET, Kaspersky and Panda. Or, if you aren't using affiliate fees suggest free options like Avast, Avira or AVG.

[ceyfer]

Sunbelt’s Vipre is still fairly new to the AV world. Although their Counterspy is in my opinion one of the very best.

I agree with your words here Evilfantasy, Counterspy is one of the great antispyware in the business for years and it managed to be on the ranks with Spyware Doctor and Webroot Spysweeper.

Reviews: check this Merlin_Magii I compiled some of the reviews for you
Virus Bulletin review of Vipre
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2326526,00.asp
http://reviews.cnet.com/internet-sec...tml#cnetReview
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-...-587540/review
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHzn70hpxJY

In my opinion, I never use it cause it still lag behind in terms of security features and protection offered by the big players.

[detailer]

I'm with hellnoire on Symantec-burned by the product and even worse by the tech support(or dismal lack thereof)I am also one to take little stock in "paid for" reviews where under a certain set of controlled circumstances utilizing carefully selected "canned" infections a winner is declared in the ongoing battle for "best" whatever.The two proven ways to determine how well any program works for YOU is (1) install it and go surfing on the wrong side of the web-not as entailed as the battery of tests from the "experts",however a very effective(yet risky) way to find out if the product lives up to it's claims.If you lack the stomach for this approach, or the ability to deal with infections you may incur,I suggest (2) Go to as many security software forums as you can find and read what real world everyday users have to say about the product they're using.Look specifically for the "problems" or the types of infections encountered.Take note of foot print,CPU, and memory usage.Or Google up something like "got infected running Norton"(you'll love what you see there Dan).But to be fair,just insert the brand name of your choice.I haven't "run them all",but I've used enough of them in as many combinations to know that freeware has protected me as well,and in some cases better than products I've paid good money for.

[Bora]

I know nothing about your internet habits or needs but I find geswall free in conjunction with a lightweight antivirus such as Norman and a good firewall such as Online Armor to be an excellent proactive solution. As for free on demand scanners I think Hitman pro and Malwarebytes' will add an additional layer of protection. I am even currently using spy sweeper together with them with no significant hit on system performance.
Now imagine running your browser as an isolated application with geswall, more ever running your browser in run safer mode in online armor and more ever having Norman with its sandboxie technology active . And more ever I am behind a router and I have already made a complete backup of my system with Acronis 11, so yes I feel pretty safe right now .

Cheers

[Raymond]

I hate it when someone asks for advice for security products and someone responds, "I've used ABC antivirus and I never got infected . . . "

I strongly agree with this statement. Some antivirus works better on some computer configuration. There is no single AV that works on ALL computer. A user could be using the worst antivirus but never got a virus because he is careful and uses his common sense not to run suspicious files.

However on the other hand, a careless user running Kaspersky Internet Security could get infected by virus if he's always surfing those porn sites, download hack tools and etc.

I personally do not have any problems with Symantec/Norton products but it's just that the legal team pisses me off when they threaten me to remove articles that didn't even violate any copyright/piracy law. Tried explaining to them, they won't reply and continue hitting on my webhost. Well its all in the past but now I am careful not to talk so much about Norton.

Vipre, let me give it a try and see how it works.

[evilfantasy]

Good post Raymond!

I've said on multiple occasions the the computer mouse is the biggest piece of malware ever created. Click, click....OOPS!

[rnbv424140]

crikey a review on the blog would be nice of you have time ray. it made me curious